Philosophy
by Sylvan
Summary: A tongue in cheek look at the Akito gender controversy. The Sohma boys argue over the truth in terms of Descartes's philosophy. If you don't get philosophy, you'll probably be lost.


Philosophy

Yuki gazed around the living room, moving from face to face. Kyo was seated at the edge of a chair staring blankly at some imaginary object with his mouth cracked open – not the most intelligent of expressions for the cat, but Yuki rarely expected more of him. Tohru knelt in the floor, turning from person to person herself, looking for all the world as if her brain were about to fry any moment, but the rat couldn't really blame her. Certainly, there were stranger things in the world, but he none came to mind at the moment.

Only Shigure seemed to have escaped total confusion. The novelist sat on the couch with his chin resting in his hand, deep in thought. Yuki knew better than to ask what he was thinking, though. If it weren't something about girls in miniskirts, let alone something on topic, they'd be lucky. For the moment, he'd bask in the silence and try to sort out his own muddled brain.

But that was too much for Kyo. "How the hell can Akito be a girl?" The cat shattered the silence.

"You've asked that six times already," Yuki reminded him as calmly as he could manage at this point. "And for the last time, he's not… At least, he wasn't last _I_ knew."

"Oh, and what makes you the expert, rat-boy," the cat challenged. "I guess you have some way of knowin', huh?"

"Well, getting dragged about left and right, I would have thought I'd have noticed," the rat replied, ignoring Kyo's tasteless insinuation.

"The absence of a slightly more feminine anatomy would call for some questions," Shigure put in.

"Eh?" Tohru suddenly put in, snapping out of her stupor. "What?"

"He means Akito never had a woman's body before, stupid!" Kyo snapped.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Tohru murmured meekly. "I guess I wasn't paying close enough attention…"

"There was no need to yell at her. Stupid cat." Yuki folded his arms.

"Why you--!"

"Simmer down, children," Shigure cautioned with faint amusement. "You can go roll around outside later, but we have other matters to deal with at the moment."

"Well, to put things simply, we've been deceived. The Manga Artist lied to us."

"What?" Tohru fixed her eyes on Yuki. "When?"

"Well, either before, when we thought Akito was a man, or now, when he appears to be a woman."

"Why the hell would She do that? Hasn't She screwed up our lives enough?" Kyo demanded.

"Obviously, She didn't think so."

"Well, let's think about this," Shigure interjected. "We can all agree that the Manga Artist has absolute power, correct?"

"For the sake of moving on, I'll agree," Yuki sighed.

"Alright, and logically, nothing greater can come from something lesser, right?" the dog continued.

"Yeah, fine, get on with it," Kyo growled.

"Well, then, since we have the concept that the Manga Artist is all-powerful, eternal, and perfect, it must be so, because we couldn't think of such a being if one didn't exist."

"Well, I guess that makes sense," Tohru mused. "I mean, my mom used to always say that if we couldn't believe in anything we could always believe in…"

"Well, then," Shigure cut in, drowning Tohru out, "if the Manga Artist is all-powerful and perfect, then She can't deceive us."

"But if She's all-powerful," Yuki began.

"Well, She has the _ability_ to deceive us, but she _wouldn't_, because deception is imperfect and the Manga Artist is perfect, so deceiving us would make her imperfect, which we've already established isn't possible."

"Eh? What? Huh?" Tohru looked about frantically. Yuki was pretty sure he could smell something burning…

"Well, then there's some other cretin out there screwin' with us!" Kyo was on his feet and raving. "We should get out and find the little bastard and put a stop to this!"

"But a lower being would have no power over the Manga Artist, who would still be perfect and therefore would be under no obligation to draw Akito as he/she is not."

"Then it has to be the Manga Artist!"

"But that would be imperfect, so that means our own senses must be deceiving us."

"But… but… but…" Tohru was jumping up and down, waving her arms. "Why would the Manga Artist make our senses deceive us?"

"Not make, Tohru, allow."

"Huh? Wha…? But why?"

"It's not our place to question the reasons of a perfect being. Obviously, there's some perfect plan in place that we as simple mortals cannot understand and must therefore toil on this earth and get along as best we can."

"Unless, of course," Yuki chimed in, "that's just what she wants us to think." A loud thud sounded as Tohru hit the floor, smoke rising from her ears. "Honda-san?"

"Now, look whatcha did! Stupid rat!" Kyo knelt beside Tohru. "Akito's some demented little cross-dresser. Let's leave it at that!"

Yuki glared at the cat a moment. It would have been easy enough to agree with him… if it wasn't Kyo. "We'll leave up to the fanfic authors. I'm going to get Honda-san some water and an icepack."

"Ah, youth… so naïve, so lazy," Shigure sighed remorsefully. He certainly had more to say, but the sudden collision with an air-born coffee table put that to a merciful end. And thus, the debate rages on…


End file.
